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Restoring and Rebuilding: Indigent Defense in Gwinnett County

Sixty years ago, in Gideon v. Wainwright, (1) the Supreme Court declared that all people facing a criminal charge carrying potential imprisonment are entitled to the effective assistance of counsel. But in many places in this country, that promise has been elusive. As part of the 60th anniversary of Gideon, the Wren Collective sought to evaluate the state of indigent defense in five places that look very different from one another: rural counties, big cities, places with a public defender, and a place that opted out of a public defender system. We decided to examine the state of indigent defense in Gwinnett, a rapidly growing county that sits just outside of Atlanta. (2)

In Georgia today, about 85% of people charged with a crime and facing a loss of liberty are too poor to afford a defense lawyer. (3) For decades, the state struggled to ensure that the Supreme Court’s promise of an effective lawyer became a reality for its residents. As its jail population spiked, the need for lawyers who could provide effective representation grew. (4) In 2003, it established the Georgia Public Defender Counsel (GPDC), which not only increased the number of public defenders in the state but also provided a means of oversight and support to those attorneys. Soon after, the number of people held in Georgia’s local jails pretrial significantly dropped, illustrating the impact effective representation could have.

Six counties elected not to join GPDC when the state established it, opting instead to operate independent and locally controlled systems of indigent defense. Gwinnett is one of those counties. (5) Operating independently of GPDC leaves these counties without access to many of the resources offered by the public defender, including a centralized staff and budget for training and professional development; a team of specialty offices handling appeals and mental health, gang, and capital offenses; and a dedicated general counsel’s office to provide insight to lawyers about complex issues. But, at the same time, operating independently from GPDC keeps the Gwinnett Indigent Defense Governing Committee (IDGC) immune from some of the larger political influences, including the politics of whomever the governor appoints as head of GPDC and fluctuating state budget constraints.

In Gwinnett, we discovered a sound structure that is currently struggling because the county needs more lawyers who are willing to represent poor people charged with crimes, more staff to support the work of those lawyers, and better training programs to prepare new lawyers and improve the quality of representation. The number of lawyers taking court appointments in Gwinnett County has dropped considerably over the last few years. As a result, remaining attorneys have unmanageable caseloads, especially those qualified to handle serious cases. Additionally, the county itself does little to ensure that lawyers are appropriately staffed and adequately trained to handle complex cases.

We believe this is a solvable problem if the county is willing to spend the money. By providing stability, administrative support, and other benefits, like health insurance, retirement, or a steady salary to court-appointed attorneys similar to those given by other governmental agencies, we believe that the county can attract more attorneys to this work. Additionally, funding a cadre of salaried investigators and social workers who can immediately help court-appointed attorneys (which also removes judicial barriers to funding) will dramatically improve defense in the county and make it more attractive for lawyers, who will not have to beg for resources. By establishing and promoting local training programs, the county can convey to young lawyers that if they come to Gwinnett, they will have long-term support. We believe that, if implemented, these changes will lead to more effective lawyers and, most importantly, meaningfully improved client outcomes.

I. Overview of Indigent Defense in Gwinnett County

Gwinnett County, Georgia, once one of the fastest-growing counties in the country, remains one of the largest and most diverse counties in the state. (6) Today, Gwinnett is an urban county that is home to nearly one million residents, and that sits just 30 miles northeast of downtown Atlanta. Despite its geographic proximity and similar population density to other metro Atlanta counties, the indigent defense system differs significantly.

The Georgia Indigent Defense Act of 2003 established the Georgia Public Defender Council (GPDC), which oversees the indigent defense system across the state. (7) Today, of the 159 counties in Georgia, only six have opted out of GPDC governance. Gwinnett is one of those six counties. Instead, Gwinnett has an Indigent Defense Governing Committee (IDGC) composed of six members who are tasked with operating the indigent defense system including setting policy and overseeing the appointment of counsel for indigent clients. The attorneys responsible for representing indigent defendants in Gwinnett County all maintain their own private practices but have also agreed to accept appointments to represent indigent defendants. An estimated 90% of people accused of crime in Gwinnett cannot afford to hire a lawyer and thus require the services of appointed counsel.(8)

The IDGC is responsible for creating a Panel of Attorneys and a “term list” once every three months. The term list designates the attorneys eligible to receive appointments in the county during each term of court. Attorneys on the list can fall into one of several categories:(9)

  • The “A List” is composed of attorneys who the IDGC has deemed qualified to handle cases that are punishable by life imprisonment or greater. These attorneys must have been members of the bar for at least 10 years and must have participated in the presentation of at least 15 felony cases,  5 of which must have resulted in a jury trial.
  • The “B List” is composed of attorneys who the IDGC has deemed qualified to handle cases that are punishable by 10 years or more. These attorneys must have been members of the bar for at least 3 years and must have participated in the presentation of 10 felony cases, 4 of which must have resulted in a jury trial.
  • The “C List” is composed of attorneys who the IDGC has deemed qualified to handle cases that are punishable by 10 years or less. These attorneys must have been members of the bar for at least 2 years and participated in at least 5 felony criminal cases, 2 of which must have resulted in a jury trial.
  • The “D List” is composed of attorneys who the IDGC has deemed qualified to represent clients in misdemeanor cases. Any lawyer who practices criminal law and is in good standing with the state bar and actively practices in the circuit is eligible for inclusion on the Panel and the term list for appointment to represent an indigent person charged with a misdemeanor violation.
  • The Juvenile Defense List is composed of lawyers who are qualified to represent children in juvenile court cases. Any attorney who has requested to be included on the juvenile court panel, has attended (or will attend within one year of being placed on the panel) the GPDC juvenile law seminar, practices criminal law, and is in good standing with the state bar and actively practices in the circuit shall be eligible for inclusion on the Panel and the term list for appointment to represent an indigent child or parent of a child alleged to be deprived.

All attorneys on the term list must also complete at least six continuing education hours per year related to criminal defense, trial practice, or appellate practice. While the Indigent Defense Program Guidelines allow the judges to appoint any attorney who maintains a law practice in the jurisdiction and meets the above qualifications to represent indigent defendants, (10) it is the IDGC’s practice to appoint only those attorneys who express an interest in joining
the panel and taking appointed cases. (11)

When Gwinnett County opted out of governance by the state-run Georgia Public Defender Council in 2003, the county had approximately 666,651 residents and a 6.2% poverty rate. (12) Now, twenty years later, the population is about 975,353, and nearly 10.8% of those residents live in poverty. (13) As the county has grown and changed, so have its indigent defense needs. Today, Gwinnett County appoints lawyers to more than 13,000 juvenile, misdemeanor, and felony cases each year.

Unfortunately, like many other jurisdictions in the country, the COVID-19 pandemic had an incredible impact on indigent clients and the lawyers who represented them.

By 2022, nearly 40% of the lawyers in the county who had represented indigent clients before March 2020 had left the panel, and the lawyers who remained were seeing incredibly high caseloads. (14)

II. Findings

A. Gwinnett County's indigent defense system has many strengths.

Though there are several areas where increased investment in indigent defense is needed, there are some bright spots in Gwinnett County’s indigent defense system.

Gwinnett County’s budget for indigent defense is less than half of the budget of similarly sized jurisdictions in Georgia. (15) Despite this funding disparity, it has been competitive in its hourly attorney compensation, which is often cited as one of the primary obstacles to recruiting and retaining indigent defense lawyers. As of May 2023, attorneys handling felonies are paid between $120-135 per hour, and attorneys handling misdemeanor and juvenile offenses are paid $100 per hour. In contrast, in some places we examined, counties simply provide flat fees to lawyers per case. Voluminous research demonstrates that flat-fee systems of payment incentivize poor performance. A study conducted in six counties in North Carolina, for example, found that changing lawyer compensation from an hourly rate to a flat fee led to reduced attorney effort; lawyers under a flat-fee system reported spending 11% fewer hours on indigent cases, disposed of their cases 25% sooner and were 36% more likely to dispose of a case on the same day as their first meeting with their client. (16) Additionally, under the flat-fee compensation system, people were 11% more likely to be convicted and 37% more likely to be incarcerated, a result primarily driven by an increase in guilty pleas. (17) Gwinnett has avoided these pitfalls by allowing attorneys to bill for the actual time spent on a case and by increasing attorney compensation. Gwinnett County pays attorneys hourly for their work, and the pay rate is among the highest in the state for contract public defenders. (18)

The competitive pay structure likely contributes to improved client outcomes because attorneys are more incentivized to do thorough and diligent work. Lawyers can take the necessary time to represent their clients competently without fear that their work will go unpaid and risk their financial well-being. The pay structure has also allowed the county to attract attorneys with significant criminal defense and trial experience to the indigent defense panel. In interviews conducted with several of the attorneys on the term list, particularly those who represented clients accused of serious felonies, several shared that the competitive pay is what kept them representing indigent clients when they would have otherwise been unwilling to work in a public defender office.

Finally, because each of the attorneys on the term lists maintains their own private practice, conflicts in client representation are limited. Lawyers are prohibited from representing a client if “there is a significant risk that the lawyer’s own interests or the lawyer’s duties to another client, former client, or a third person will materially and adversely affect the representation of the client.” (19) For criminal defense attorneys, for example, this rule generally means that a lawyer should not represent two or more people charged as co-defendants, two or more people who implicate each other even if not charged as co-defendants, or two or more people who are defendants,
and/or victims in the same case. Gwinnett County is able to minimize these potential conflicts because the vast majority of the attorneys on the panel are not sharing an office or a law practice.

B. Gwinnett County does not have enough attorneys to effectively handle all of its cases.

Like much of the legal profession, Gwinnett County experienced an extraordinary loss of lawyers during the pandemic. In 2022, the county had 132 lawyers willing to take court appointments. Now, that number is 80. (20) There are only 8 lawyers eligible to handle murder cases which have a potential punishment of death or life in prison without the possibility of parole. (21) There are 18 lawyers on the “A List,” which means there are only 18 lawyers available to represent people facing a potential sentence of life in prison. There are also only 13 lawyers on the “B List,” a group that handles cases involving crimes punishable by 10 or more years. (22) There are 6 attorneys on the “C List,” which handles cases punishable by under less than 10 years. There are 29 attorneys on the “D list,” and they handle misdemeanors. There is only one attorney who handles misdemeanor mental health cases.

There are simply not enough lawyers to handle all of Gwinnett’s cases.

In 2021, the last year of publicly available criminal filing data, there were 3,271 felony cases filed in Superior Court. (23) Those cases require a tremendous number of hours conducting investigations, reviewing evidence like body camera footage and forensic testing, and preparing for trial or plea negotiations. Acknowledging the substantial effort required, a recent workload study on indigent defense conducted by the RAND Corporation recommended that attorneys handle no more than seven felony cases that carry a life sentence, eight murder cases, 21 felony-high cases (non-LWOP felonies that involve serious prison time above 15 years), or 59 felony-low cases per year (cases that involve up to two years). (24) RAND made this calculation assuming that lawyers had 2,080 hours a year to work, which, it acknowledged, is an extremely high estimate because those hours do not include work spent on activities unrelated to adult criminal case representation—like travel and billing. (25)

Unsurprisingly, given the number of filings and the number of lawyers available to take court appointments, many attorneys in Gwinnett have caseloads that far exceed those numbers. According to data obtained by the Wren Collective, 47 lawyers who received court appointments had over 100 cases appointed to them in 2022. Seven attorneys on the A-List had over 100 appointments. One had 339 cases, another had 242, and a third attorney had 164. On the B-List, one attorney had 334 cases, another had 313, and a third had 275. It is simply impossible for lawyers to handle that many cases, even if some of those cases are misdemeanors, which still require time and work. A review of attorney payments also makes clear that attorneys are not billing for very much time on individual cases, further indicating that caseloads are likely too high. For example, in 2022, almost no attorney billed above $1500 per case, even attorneys who are on the serious felonies (A and B) appointment list. (26) This suggests that attorneys are not spending anywhere near the number of recommended hours on each of their cases.

C. Attorneys lack access to investigators and other supports.

Interviews and data reveal that attorneys are not regularly utilizing investigators, social workers, and experts to the detriment of clients. Available and competent support staff are necessary for quality representation. According to the ABA Guidelines, “[q]uality legal representation cannot be rendered either by defenders or by assigned counsel unless the lawyers have available other supporting services in addition to secretaries and investigators.” (27) Most basically, a defense attorney must investigate every case, and they need an investigator to do so. (28) Investigators are skilled in interviewing witnesses, inspecting a crime scene, and gathering records and other documents. Because the IDGC does not have investigators on staff, attorneys must search for them on their own. That adds extra time and stress, and an attorney may forgo finding and hiring an investigator due to the extra work it requires and instead attempt to complete an investigation on their own. Additionally, in Wren’s interviews with local attorneys, they reported problems knowing where to look for capable investigators.

Performing an investigation without an investigator can be detrimental to clients, as well-done investigations often win cases. Further, performing investigations without the assistance of an investigator is problematic, aside from the individual’s skill set, because when an attorney personally interviews witnesses, the attorney may have to take the stand to challenge a witness’s credibility or testify to an inconsistent statement at trial or they might have to withdraw from the case altogether. (29)

Data received by the Wren Collective shows that attorneys in Gwinnett are simply not using investigators in court-appointed cases. In 2022, the county paid investigators in just 157 cases, even though there were nearly 4,000 felony cases that year. (30) In many other similarly sized counties, investigators are available to attorneys in every case because they are salaried employees of the county. Lawyers are not required to request funding from judges for the work of other integral members of the defense team.

A defense attorney also often needs to utilize a social worker. Social workers can tell a client’s story by gathering mitigating evidence about their life history that puts the crime into perspective by explaining the client’s mental health struggles or trauma, for example. Social workers also connect clients to other services, like housing, jobs, and food assistance, which is often critical to convincing a judge or prosecutor to offer a less carceral plea or sentence. Without the assistance of a social worker, attorneys end up doing that work themselves when conducting such work is not necessarily within their skillset, or worse, they don’t do it at all. Few attorneys use social workers; the Wren Collective was unable to find evidence of a single payment made to a social worker hired by a defense attorney in 2022. (31)

Equally problematic, the IDGC does not have any interpreters on staff, which is troubling when 35% of Gwinnett County speaks a language other than English as their primary language. (32) If an attorney cannot reasonably communicate with a client, the lawyer has the duty to use a qualified and impartial interpreter. (33) Appointed attorneys may request the AOC provide interpreters but the needs exceed the number of available interpreters and the limited number increases the possibility of conflicts.

Likewise, experts can make or break a case. Experts have specialized knowledge, training, and experience in their field, and testimony can clarify or explain complicated forensic or mental health evidence in a credible way. As the ABA Standards point out, “[t]he quality of representation at trial…may be excellent and yet unhelpful to the defendant if the defense requires the assistance of a psychiatrist or handwriting expert and no such services are available.” (34) Experts were paid in just 22 cases in 2022.

D. Gwinnett County lacks comprehensive training programs for attorneys—especially newer ones—on its court appointment list.

In order to serve as an attorney on the “A List,” attorneys must meet certain experiential benchmarks (for example, that they have practiced for ten years or have tried a certain number of felonies). (35) They must also complete six hours of continuing legal education each year in the area of criminal defense, trial practice, or appellate skills. (36) But Gwinnett County’s panel attorneys lack sufficient access to local training programs that are reasonably priced, readily available, and substantively helpful.(37)

This type of training does, in fact, exist: the Georgia Public Defender Commission ensures that it is provided to all of its attorneys. For example, GPDC offers its new attorneys two weeks of training and hosts a number of additional educational courses throughout the year for all state public defenders. (38) While panel attorneys in Gwinnett could access some of the trainings, they are not advertised to them (39) and the costs would not be covered for panel attorneys as they would be for the public defenders. (40)

Similarly, the county bar association used to conduct another annual  training, but it has been discontinued. This training was very beneficial to Gwinnett’s panel attorneys: it was provided consistently, targeted local  issues and practices, and was affordable. (41) But the bar association’s criminal defense section dissipated during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic and has not yet recovered though it has been reactivated and participation by Panel attorneys is increasing. (42) The loss of this training seems to have had a significant impact on attorney compliance.

Specifically, the Gwinnett Indigent Defense Commission reports that the number of attorneys “out of compliance” with the education requirements has tripled over the last three years. (43) It points to the disappearance of these trainings, but in particular the collapse of the criminal defense section, as the reason for the increase.

The lack of training is especially problematic given the desperate need in the county for new panel lawyers because of the high number of attorneys who have left that list. Warm bodies will not do—the county needs well-trained lawyers to provide effective representation, and it is critical that those attorneys are in compliance with the education requirements to remain on the list. Without improvements to its training and education resources, less experienced attorneys will have a much harder time developing the necessary skills to represent their clients effectively.

Like high-quality training programs, attorney mentoring can serve as a helpful tool for increasing competency and skill over shorter periods of time, but Gwinnett County’s formal mentoring program could also use improvement. (44) Currently, the mentoring program pairs newer attorneys with more experienced attorneys and pays both to participate in the program. (45) As designed, the new attorney will also sit second-chair at trial and work with the experienced attorney to engage in motion practice, client interviewing, and strategy discussions. However, the program needs more participation by the experienced attorneys on the list and could use more oversight and engagement by the Indigent Defense Governing Committee to ensure that the newer attorneys are receiving adequate mentorship. (46)

In short, Gwinnett needs far more attorneys on its court appointment list, but it is likely many of the attorneys who will be joining the list will be newer and have less experience than those who have been on the list. Newer attorneys can gain the critical skills needed to provide competent representation to their clients by attending meaningful trainings and taking advantage of thoughtful mentoring. Indigent clients have a right to the effective assistance of counsel; the county must fill in the existing gaps in training and mentoring to safeguard this right.

E. Oversight and supervision of attorneys on the indigent defense panel is limited.

While the IDGC is tasked with the oversight of the indigent defense panel and has the ability to add and remove attorneys from the term list, respond to client complaints, and mandate training, its ability to provide close supervision and training of the attorneys on the term list is limited. The six IDGC members each maintain law practices or other jobs in addition to their service on the governing committee. While all are committed to improving indigent defense, their work and service to that end is necessarily limited in scope.

The members of the governing committee cannot conduct in-court observations to understand the training needs and preparedness of defense attorneys on the term list. Instead, they must rely on reports of deficiencies from prosecutors and judges. Two members of the governing committee do practice criminal defense and report observations, but not on a level that produces meaningful information. Those kinds of reports may come to the IDGC in extreme circumstances, but because a defense lawyer’s deficiencies might actually serve the interests of prosecutors and judges, like moving a case quickly or securing a conviction, those reports may never come. \

Similarly, the governing committee cannot visit clients to solicit their feedback or concerns about the quality of representation from their lawyers. Instead, they must rely on clients submitting complaints—a process that often requires clients to know that they have that option available to them and further requires the Sheriff’s department to provide clients with the opportunity to contact the committee from the jail.

Finally, the governing committee members do not or rarely provide attorneys with direct feedback on the quality of their advocacy or case outcomes. Attorneys are simply paid when the case closes for the work that they have done but are not given feedback on how they could improve their work in the future. Feedback on performance is an essential part of attorney development, and attorneys in Gwinnett have very little opportunity to receive it.

III. Recommendations

A. Gwinnett should invest in a central indigent defense office that employs staff that can help improve the overall quality of the defense team.

Indigent defense in the county would benefit from better oversight of attorneys, improved training practices, and a more robust investment in social workers, investigators, experts, and interpreters as part of the defense team.

As described in part I, the IDGC is a six-member board of attorneys, all with their own private practice or other employment. They cannot, and should not, actively supervise panel attorneys. Instead, the IDGC should be utilized as a board of directors to make high-level decisions and advocate for resources. The IDGC should be given the resources to hire a director to supervise the day-to-day operations of a centralized Indigent Defense Office.

After establishing a director, the IDGC should then build up its staff to serve as resources for attorneys. Currently, social workers, investigators, experts, and interpreters are underutilized by the defense bar in Gwinnett County. The county can maintain its practice of contracting with private defense attorneys to provide direct client representation and instead dedicate staffing the central office to administrative personnel and the other members of the defense team that are critical to improving client outcomes.

First, the IDGC should hire three to four social workers and three to four investigators as salaried or contract employees to allow attorneys to utilize them in their cases easily. This would ensure that attorneys know where to go for resources and do not have to rely on approval from a judge to get the services their clients need.

Second, the IDGC should compile a bank of experts that lawyers could call upon when needed and establish a way for the experts to bill the county for their services, rather than attorneys having to request funding from judges and risk prematurely sharing defense theories and strategy. It also allows attorneys to avoid spending time on the administrative tasks associated with billing for experts.

Third, IDGC should hire or contract court-certified interpreters of the most commonly spoken languages in Gwinnett County and continue to utilize a language line for attorneys who need to communicate with clients in other languages. This action will reduce any barriers to attorneys getting qualified interpreters and lessen the chances that attorneys will try to get by without an interpreter, which could be devastating to a client and their case. It will also facilitate increased out-of-court communication between attorneys and their clients who speak English as a second language.

The county should also use a more robust central office to offer training opportunities for both new and experienced panel attorneys. Right now, the only IDGC-sponsored training is the mentorship program. (47) While attorneys are paid to participate in the mentorship program, it is entirely optional, and participation is limited. The county should add a training coordinator position who can monitor the qualifications of attorneys on the term list and sponsor free continuing legal education for appointed counsel.

B. Gwinnett should improve attorney recruitment and retention efforts.

Establishing a central Indigent Defense Office will assist the county with its most dire need, improving recruitment and retention of lawyers on the term list, especially for lawyers who can take the most serious cases in the county. One way to do that is by increasing the resources available to attorneys, making it more attractive to them to work there. Currently, the budget for the two prosecuting offices in Gwinnett is more than four times the indigent defense budget in the county. (48) Such a disparity is unconscionable, especially considering that the District Attorney and Solicitor’s offices can rely on the police department to conduct their investigations and, therefore, only require minimal internal investigative funding.

The county should substantially increase its investment in indigent defense by providing parity between the prosecution and defense budgets. This would allow the IDGC to invest in the resources that attorneys need to handle their cases effectively and to increase attorney compensation, especially for serious cases. The county should also recognize that while its payment structure is competitive with, or better than, other counties, the benefits it provides are not. It should consider providing attorneys county benefits if they handle a certain number of appointments (with IDGC controlling for caseload and quality of representation). Attorneys who work in other counties that have public defender offices receive health care insurance, retirement, and other lucrative benefits that are costly to solo practitioners, both in terms of the direct monetary cost and in terms of the time it takes to set up some of these benefits. (49) IDGC could hire a human resources officer to help practitioners who take significant appointments, and it could set up a health care option and 401(k) system that lawyers could buy into—which could then be offered at a reduced rate to those lawyers. Providing these benefits would make Gwinnett more competitive and attractive and could help convince attorneys to stay.

Gwinnett could also offer a salary or contract to attorneys who commit to taking a minimum number of cases for each term of court (typically three months). This practice has already proven to be effective in Gwinnett’s juvenile court. Attorneys would be assigned to a set of courtrooms and be present at arraignment calendars to take appointments for clients who were not assigned counsel at their first appearance hearing. Attorneys could still take appointments from other courtrooms (with a caseload limit), but this setup would ensure that there are qualified attorneys available to take cases while providing attorneys with a minimum guaranteed salary. It would also provide attorneys with financial stability while eliminating onerous billing requirements, again, making Gwinnett an attractive place to practice. To make this system work most effectively, IDGC would need to monitor both attorney caseloads and evaluate the quality of representation to ensure that attorneys are never working an excessive number of cases.

The county also can create a culture that makes it more attractive for new attorneys to come to the county and then stay there. As explained earlier, there is no attorney training or significant mentorship available for the new attorneys who need it most. This means many lawyers are left alone as they try to learn how to represent their clients effectively. For new lawyers, working in a public defender office that has training and support will simply be more attractive. Gwinnett County can become competitive by paying for lawyers to attend state-level training, developing a more intensive mentorship program for new lawyers, and then sending lawyers to more rigorous training programs as they take on more serious cases, like training on understanding and utilizing DNA evidence or combating junk science. It can, in other words, invest in its lawyers.

C. Gwinnett should consider the indigent defense budget independently of the budgets for judges and the Administrative Office of the Court.

During the late summer of each year, representatives from county departments and agencies present their proposed budgets to the Chairperson of the Board of Commissioners and a Budget Review Team. (50) The county has archived videos of each presentation and accompanying material dating back to 2011. For each budget cycle between 2011 and 2024, the Administrative Office of the Courts has been responsible for presenting a budget package that includes funding for numerous agencies, including the Superior Court, State Court, Magistrate Court, Jury Management, Mediation, Law Libraries, Information Technology, Accountability Courts, and Indigent Defense. (51) In contrast, the District Attorney and Solicitor General’s Office, the two offices responsible for prosecuting criminal offenses in the county, are allowed to present budget requests dedicated solely to their offices. (52, 53)

While the prosecutors advocate only for themselves, the Indigent Defense Commission must rely on an advocate who is also pushing for funding for many other people. 

Functionally, requiring the Indigent Defense Governing Committee’s requested budget to be considered alongside several other budgets creates potential conflicts. Judicial priorities, for example, are sometimes fundamentally opposed to the needs of indigent defendants. While judges are concerned with prompt case resolutions and clearing backlogs, (54) the IDGC must be focused on thorough investigation, connecting clients to the services they need, and providing zealous representation. These defense goals are essential, but they take time that might ultimately slow the courts’ dockets, and require expenditures that judges must approve. While to date, no funding request by the Indigent Defense Governing Committee has been refused by the County, practically considering the budget concerns of nine different departments simultaneously can mean that one of those departments might not get the time or consideration that it deserves.

The county should create an opportunity for the Indigent Defense Governing Committee to present its business plan to the Budget Review Team in the same way that its counterparts at the District Attorney and Solicitor General’s offices do. Such a hearing would give the IDGC adequate time and opportunity to focus solely on the needs of indigent clients and the lawyers and staff that support them, needs that are often overlooked everywhere else in the criminal legal system, rather than being considered alongside judges and other judicial programming. It will also be a critical change if the county creates a more robust indigent defense office. Independence from other criminal system stakeholders is imperative for the legitimacy and success of any indigent defense system.

Conclusion

Gwinnett County has the infrastructure to provide poor clients with quality defense, but in the post-pandemic era, it needs to make some serious investments in attorney recruitment and retention to increase the size of its defense team. The solutions will cost money, but they do not require a major overhaul of how the county provides indigent representation.

Instead, Gwinnett should invest in fixes that make it easier and more attractive for attorneys to work there while providing lawyers with the resources they need to utilize investigators, social workers, and experts, housing many of them under the same umbrella that all attorneys can use.

We are confident Gwinnett County can provide poor people with the representation Gideon requires and serve as a model for jurisdictions across the country.

Endnotes

  1. 372 U.S. 335, 345 (1963).

  2. See Population Growth, Gwinnett Cnty., https://www.gwinnettcounty.com/web/gwinnett/aboutgwinnett/fastfacts/populationgrowth (last visited Oct. 26, 2023).

  3. Dylan Jackson, Crisis in Georgia’s public defender system fuels case backlog, jail overcrowding, Atlanta J.-Const. (Nov. 10, 2022), https://www.ajc.com/news/investigations/crisis-in-georgias-public-defender-system-fuels-case-backlog-jail-overcrowding/6G47GRR3HJGRZLDQBPSZES2MBU/.

  4. See Georgia jail population by conviction status 1978-2013, Prison Pol’y Initiative, https://www.prisonpolicy.org/graphs/GA_Convicted_Status_1978-2013.html (last visited Oct. 26, 2023).

  5. Many of these counties serve a sizable population, including Cobb, Douglas, and Gwinnett Counties.

  6. See Population Growth, supra note 2.

  7. Our Organization, Ga. Pub. Def. Council, https://gapubdef.org/about-gpd/ (last visited Oct. 26, 2023).

  8. Zoom Interview with David Lipscomb, Chairman, Gwinnett Cnty. Indigent Def. Governing Comm. (Oct. 5, 2023) [hereinafter Lipscomb Zoom Interview].

  9. See Gwinnett Cnty. Super. Ct. S.O. 012003, https://www.gwinnettcourts.com/documents/Standing%20OrdersGwinnett%20Judicial%20Circuit%20Indigent%20Defense%20Program.PDF [hereinafter Gwinnett County Indigent Defense Program Standing Order].

  10. Id. at 5.

  11. Lipscomb Zoom Interview, supra note 8.

  12. U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey Summary Tables: Gwinnett County, Georgia (2003), https://www.gwinnettcounty.com/static/departments/planning/Census/2003_american_community_survey_data.pdf.

  13. QuickFacts: Gwinnett County, Georgia, U.S. Census Bureau, https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/gwinnettcountygeorgia/PST045222 (last visited Oct. 26, 2023).

  14. Alia Pharr, ‘Devastating’ loss of indigent defenders in Gwinnett County, Atlanta J.-Const. (Nov. 23, 2022), https://www.ajc.com/news/devastating-loss-of-
    indigent-defenders-in-gwinnett-county/HESWERYZUJFQNAO4VOMYRQRTDU/.

  15. Gwinnett is the second largest county in Georgia. The largest county, Fulton, has a budget of $22,529, 679, see Budget, Fulton Cnty., https://fultoncountyga.gov/inside-fulton-county/open-government/budget (last visited Oct. 26, 2023), and the third largest county, DeKalb, has a budget of $16,193,331, see Dekalb Cnty, FY2023 Budget (2023), https://www.dekalbcountyga.gov/sites/default/files/users/user3568/FY23%20Budget%20as%20adopted%202023.02.28%20w%20TOC.pdf. In comparison, Gwinnett’s indigent defense budget is $6,710,000. See Gwinnett Cnty., Dep’t of Fin. Servs., Monthly Financial Report for the Period Ended March 31, 2023 (2023), https://www.gwinnettcounty.com/static/departments/financialservices/pdf/gwinnett-county-financial-status-report-march-2023.pdf [hereinafter Gwinnett Monthly Financial Report].

  16. Andrew J. Lee, Flat Fee Compensation, Lawyer Incentives, and Case Outcomes
    in Indigent Criminal Defense at 1 (Univ. of Tex. at Austin Working Paper, 2021), https://andrewlee543.github.io/files/AndrewLee_JMP.pdf.

  17. Id.

  18. See Pharr, supra note 14.

  19. GA R BAR Rule 4-102, RPC Rule 1.7 (Rule 1.7 - Conflict of Interest: General Rule).

  20. See Pharr, supra note 14.

  21. Crimes in Georgia that carry a possible sentence of life in prison include: certain murder cases, and any second conviction for a kidnapping, armed robbery, rape, aggravated child molestation, aggravated sodomy, or aggravated sexual battery. It also includes many other first-time convictions, including for armed robbery or aggravated sexual battery.

  22. This is a broad category of offenses, and includes possession of controlled substances with intent to distribute, armed carjacking, aggravated assault or battery, and first degree burglary.

  23. Data & Statistics, Jud. Council of Ga. Admin. Off. of the Cts., https://research.georgiacourts.gov/data-and-statistics/ (last visited Oct. 26, 2023).

  24. Nicholas M. Pace, et al., National Public Defense Workload Study (2023)
    https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA2559-1.html.

  25. Tex. Indigent Def. Comm’n., Planning Study: Nueces County Public Defender Office (2022), https://www.scribd.com/document/570625301/Planning-Study-Nueces-County-PDO-2022.

  26. Data on file with the Wren Collective.

  27. Am. Bar Ass’n, ABA Standards for Criminal Justice, Providing Defense Services 21 (3d ed. 1992) [hereinafter Providing Defense Services], https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/publications/criminal_justice_standards/providing_defense_services.authcheckdam.pdf (Standard 5-1.4).

  28. Am. Bar Ass’n, Criminal Justice Standards: Defense Function (4th ed. 2017) (Standard 4-4.1).

  29. See Providing Defense Services, supra note 29, at 22 (Standard 5-1.4).

  30. Data on file with the Wren Collective.

  31. Data on file with the Wren Collective.

  32. See QuickFacts: Gwinnett County, Georgia, supra note 13.

  33. ABA Comm. on Pro. Ethics & Grievances, Formal Op. 500 (2021), https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/professional_responsibility/aba-formal-opinion-500.pdf (Language Access in the Client-Lawyer Relationship).

  34. Providing Defense Services, supra note 29, at 22 (Standard 5-1.4).

  35. See Gwinnett County Indigent Defense Program Standing Order, supra note 9.

  36. See id.

  37. See Lipscomb Zoom Interview, supra note 8.

  38. Zoom Interview with Trish McCann Bertram, Professional Development Director, Ga. Pub. Def. Council (Oct. 18, 2023) [hereinafter Bertram Zoom Interview]. See also Professional Development, Ga. Pub. Def. Council, https://gapubdef.org/professional-development/ (last visited Oct. 26, 2023).

  39. Bertram Zoom Interview, supra note 41.

  40. See Lipscomb Zoom Interview, supra note 8. Mr. Lipscomb noted that the trainings are functionally unavailable to Gwinnett County panel attorneys at this point.

  41. See id.

  42. A review of past events hosted by the Gwinnett County Bar Association over the last three years shows that the criminal law section is notably absent. See generally Upcoming Events, Gwinnett Cnty. Bar Ass’n, https://www.gwinnettbar.com/events (last visited. Oct. 26, 2023).

  43. Lipscomb Zoom Interview, supra note 8.

  44. Id.

  45. Id.

  46. For example, GPDC has a mentoring plan that has been approved by state bar of GA, a checklist of things to do, and guidelines the in-circuit mentor should go through with the new attorney. See Bertram Zoom Interview, supra note 41.

  47. See Pharr, supra note 14.

  48. Combined, the District Attorney and Solicitor’s Offices have a budget of $32,073,773. The budget for Indigent Defense in the same year was $6,710,000. While there may have been recent increases in the indigent defense budget, the Wren Collective was unable to find a county budget document that indicates such an increase. We are similarly unaware if the prosecuting offices also received a budget increase. See Gwinnett Monthly Financial Report, supra note 15.

  49. Attorneys in each of the judicial circuits governed by GPDC are entitled to state benefits. This means that public defenders in 153 of the 159 Georgia counties have access to health insurance and retirement plans.

  50. Budget Review Meetings - Gwinnett | Gwinnett County

  51. PowerPoint Presentation (gwinnettcounty.com)

  52. Lisamarie N. Bristol, Solic. Gen., Gwinnett Cnty., 2024 Business Plan Presentation.

  53. Patsy Austin-Gatson, Dist. Att’y, Gwinnett Cnty., 2024 Business Plan Presentation.

  54. Hon. George F. Hutchinson, Chief Judge, Gwinnett Cnty. Superior Ct., 2023 Budget Request Presentation.